Over a million people (1,024,000) visited Yad Vashem in the course of 2007 – an average of 3,368 visitors a day – representing a 23% rise in the annual number of visitors as compared with 2006, when the total figure was 829,559.
There was also a considerable increase in the number of visitors to our internet site. 6,928,636 visits from 215 countries were recorded in 2007, as opposed to 4,512,485 visits in 2006 (representing a rise of 54%).  A comparison with the 2005 figures (3,340,910 hits) reveals that the number of visits has more than doubled (164%) in these 2 years.

A public opinion poll conducted in June 2007 by the Smith Institute found that 89% of Israelis consider the Holocaust to be a significant element of their identity, and that 75% of Israeli youth want to learn more about the Holocaust.

2007 has been another fruitful and productive year for Yad Vashem, both in Israel and overseas.
Noteworthy events in the course of 2007:

• Yad Vashem received the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord (October 2007).  For more details, click here.
• The President of France presented Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev with the “Légion d’Honneur”  for his work on behalf of Holocaust remembrance worldwide (October 2007).  For more details, click here.
• The official opening ceremony of Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2007 focused on the theme “Bearing Witness”.  The ceremony was also broadcast live on the Yad Vashem website for the first time (April 2007).  For more details, click here.
• The International School for Holocaust Studies held its second annual conference for educators, on the topic “Holocaust and Identity” (July 2007).
• A special website about the Holocaust in Persian was uploaded to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day (January 2007).  To view the site, click here.
• Audio-guides in Hebrew, English, French, Spanish and Russian were made available for use inside the Holocaust History Museum. (Soon to be available in Arabic too).
• Yad Vashem’s internet site won the “People and Computers” magazine WebiAward for the second year running ((July 2007).  For more details, click here.
• 1,037 guided tours were given to official visitors of the State of Israel and of Yad Vashem.   Prominent visitors included: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (March 2007), Ukrainian President Victor Yuschenko (November 2007), for more details, click here, HRH Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex (September 2007), for more details, click here, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at Yad Vashem for the second time (April 2007).
• 458 individuals who saved Jews during the Holocaust were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.  Righteous Among the Nations Andrée Geulen-Herscovici of Belgium, who saved some 300 Jewish children, was awarded honorary Israeli citizenship (April 2007). 
• “Mashiv Haruach”, a concert of Jewish soul music marking the 40^th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, took place in the Valley of the Communities (August 2007). 
• “Spots of Light – To Be a Woman During the Holocaust”, an exhibition dedicated to women in the Holocaust, opened in the Exhibitions Pavilion (April 2007).  For an online tour of the exhibition, click here.
• The International Tracing Service International Commission made the decision to transfer archival material housed in the Bad Arolsen Archives in Germany to Yad Vashem (May 2007). The material includes over 20 million pages of documentation from the Holocaust period. For more details, click here.
• The International Institute for Holocaust Research held 3 international research workshops, in which Israeli PhD students met with doctoral students from Germany, Holland, Belgium and Italy.
• A seminar on the Holocaust of  Sephardic Jewry took place in the presence of fifth Israeli President Yitzhak Navon (June 2007). 
• A Yad Vashem exhibition on contemporary antisemitism in Europe opened at the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin (August 2007).  For more details, click here.
• A photographic exhibition entitled “Besa – A Code of Honor” about Muslim Albanians who saved Jews during the Holocaust, opened at Yad Vashem (November 2007).  For more details, click here.
• Yad Vashem held a tribute event honoring the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, author of the poem “Babi Yar” (November 2007).  For more details, click here.

A detailed report on Yad Vashem’s main activities during 2007 will be uploaded in the coming months.